AJR Opens Up About the Meaning Behind Their Candid Single 'Dear Winter'

By Taylor FieldsNov 8, 2019

AJR

AJR's latest single, "Dear Winter," is a song that most people probably can relate to these days.

"Dear Winter" is off the band's new album Neotheater, which they released back in April and follows 2017's The Click. The candid song was written by the group's Ryan Met and is a letter to his future child whose name is Winter. He explains, "Our newest single, 'Dear Winter,' is a song to my future kid about how weird and hard it was to date and find their mom."

Written while attending Columbia University in New York City, Ryan also talks about trying to find Winter's mom, a nod to the state of the dating scene today. Met tells iHeartRadio, "I wrote it after I asked a girl to hang out and she said no. And it wasn't quite a song about her, it was more of a song to my future kid about how strange and difficult it was to find their mom, and how weird it is to date in 2019."

The band adds, "AJR doesn't really do that many slow ballads because I think we like to write kinda quirkier, bigger anthems. And for this one, we were really thinking, how do we make this a slow, emotional song, but also keep it a little bit quirky and a little bit left of center? And so our goal, when people were listening to it, was for them to laugh a little bit when they hear these strange lyrics, but then also, hopefully end up crying because they connect to them. Kinda like when you're watching a Pixar movie."

But "Dear Winter" goes beyond just people who are currently in search of their soulmate. Many people are relating to the song even thinking about how their own parents got together. The band tells us, "It's been interesting to see fan reactions on this one because we have a very wide range of fans. You know, anywhere from teenagers to 70 year olds. And everybody hears their own story in the song, whether they have kids, or whether they're kids and they're thinking about their parents and how they met. It's an interesting song that really sparks everybody's story."